Chapter 739 - 726: Exploration Preparations
Chapter 739: Chapter 726: Exploration Preparations
"Xiaoxi~"
"Xiaoxi~"
"Fat West!"
In the darkness, a pair of crimson eyes lit up.
Sigmund awoke with his head in his hands, quietly listening, but heard nothing.
"Is this the effect of soul damage?" he murmured.
A week had passed since that annoying roommate was eliminated by the Demon King.
Afterward, the Demon King carefully examined his soul, confirming that what remained was entirely his own soul, without a trace of the alien soul fragments.
The Demon King handled it very well, so well that Sigmund almost felt grateful.
But he did not.
During the soul battle, he lay there, allowing the Demon King’s consciousness to probe deep into his soul.
The feeling was like someone splitting open his chest and holding his heart in their hand for inspection.
The Demon King might not have had any malicious intent, but that feeling of powerlessness and being at the mercy of others reminded him of his old self... reminded him of chains, of whips, of those days when he didn’t dare even lift his head.
He loathed this sense of being unable to control his life, whether his life was at the mercy of a roommate or his soul laid bare for the Demon King’s inspection...
As the provider of the battleground for the soul war, though the Demon King had tried to avoid harming him as much as possible, a slight damage to his soul was unavoidable.
Fortunately, it wasn’t serious; according to the Demon King, it would take about two months to recover fully.
So, even if he occasionally heard his roommate calling in a daze like this, Sigmund temporarily considered it one of the aftereffects of soul damage.
But Sigmund didn’t just intend to wait; he planned to find a way to solve this hallucination problem himself. The experience of being invaded by a roommate made him aware of the importance of spiritual defense techniques, so he decided to study them systematically.
As for going back to see the Demon King?
The experience of having his life hang on the whims of others — once was enough.
For so many years, he had striven, climbed so high, killed so many, all for one thing.
His destiny could only be grasped in his own hands!
...
Mushroom Garden.
Can’t reconnect, damn!
On Fat West’s side, there seemed to be just a trace left, but that trace was so faint that Lin Jun could only vaguely sense its presence, unable to confirm if any attempts at calling reached Fat West.
Logically, with only that bit of soul remaining separately there, it should soon naturally dissipate and then recondense back into his main soul body.
Yet for some reason, that strand of soul was clinging tenaciously to Fat West’s soul.
Unfortunately, now Lin Jun couldn’t observe that side anymore; otherwise, he could study what was going on.
Of course, these doubts were unimportant; what mattered was... honey... delicious...!
With only a faint connection left, Lin Jun found himself with only a vague sense, incapable of controlling that wonderful body anymore.
And it was all thanks to that treacherous, despicable Slime Demon King!
The fire of fury burned atop the mushroom cap, and in a rage, Lin Jun summoned a giant Puki at sea to beat Chis again.
No choice, since the Empire had withdrawn into its shell, dealing with it wasn’t easy. At least he needed to cultivate the current population into qualified Puki Masters or Jida Drivers to turn them into real combat power before he could target the Empire again.
Before that, Chis needed a beating.
As for avenging the Demon King’s seizing of his body... Lin Jun took out a little notebook he hadn’t shown to others and opened a page for the Demon King.
If anyone in the Mushroom Garden had benefited from this, it was probably the D Level personnel who no longer had to be bled from time to time.
...
On this side, Lin Jun had a lot to say, ready to give the Demon King a break, but the Demon King himself thought otherwise.
He was now more interested in Puki than ever before.
However, he did not rashly explore spiritual connections.
There were numerous recorded cases of deaths caused by contact with Puki’s spiritual power in the Empire.
The Demon King attempted to have a mage skilled in Spiritual Magic, using ten sacrifices as a shield, in an attempt not to delve deeply, but just to take a look, to bring back even a sliver of information.
Yet the result was that the mage and the ten sacrifices almost had their heads explode the instant they went in.
Through analysis of the remains and residual spiritual power fluctuations, the Demon King roughly deduced that the opponent used a powerful spiritual shock.
This attack far exceeded the endurance limit of the ten sacrifices, so it didn’t protect the mage.
Creating such a powerful spiritual shock wasn’t impossible; as long as it was arranged properly, the Demon King could do it too.
In the Demon King’s understanding, the other side must have set up such a spiritual counterattack at some central node, using the Fungal Network to detect invasion and transmit spiritual shock in retaliation.
Honestly, just this was enough for the Demon King to be impressed by the performance of the Fungal Network.
But it still didn’t explain why the mage received a counterattack at the first moment of intruding, without even a chance to withdraw.
No delay from individual to central? How was that done?
Of course, the unknown was precisely why he wanted to understand Puki’s soul, its importance possibly on par with his other plan.
No matter what, the Demon King still understood roughly what kind of attack would occur upon contacting Puki’s soul.
Using sacrifices to withstand the attack was feasible; the reason previous attempts had failed was simply due to insufficient scale of the ceremony and an inadequate number of sacrifices.
In the dungeon, over fifteen hundred Blood Guards were all taken out by the Demon King.
Meanwhile, a large number of death row prisoners were transported from all over to Muling Castle.
The Demon King planned to take this opportunity to fully understand what was behind Puki.
This kind of large-scale Magic Ceremony, which needed to be maintained continuously, naturally couldn’t be executed like other magic at hand; it had to be carefully arranged.
Setting up the ceremony required some time, and during this period, the Demon King also visited the Foxman and human Hero, hoping to get some advice.
However, the Foxman remained unconscious.
This phenomenon of life loss caused by Restraint could not be compensated by potions.
Looking at the comatose Foxman, although there wasn’t much exchange between them, the Demon King felt some sentiments in his heart.
Since he had the ability to premonition simulate, he naturally could not be unaware of what he needed, nor could he be unaware of the outcome of coming before him.
He knew, yet still came.
The Demon King suddenly thought, if, hundreds of years ago, when the Empire was just founded, and he and his subordinates had nothing but a piece of devastated land, yet were full of hope, had he met Jiro then, perhaps they could have become friends, just like Rune and Fenrir.
But sadly, at least for the Demon King, there’s no "if".
"Let’s end this sooner," he said softly, his voice scattered by the night breeze, "this world sustained by suffering... disgusting world."